RABL is similar, and I will likely do an episode on it in the future since it is different enough from Jbuilder. What I like about Jbuilder is its simplicity (it is just two small files). But RABL has more to offer in its interface.

from the last time i've seen it, RABL is good with objects that are ActiveModel compliant. doesn't provide a lot of support if for example you have an Array/Hash object that you got from redis that needs to be represented as json.

Assuming the reason is for viewing it yourself in a browser, the easiest (and general fix) is to use a nice browser plugin. There are two plugins both named "JSONView" for Chrome and Firefox. I use the Chrome one. Very nice tool for viewing JSON API responses.

I'm having trouble using Jbuilder with Rails 3.1.0, specifically my Jbuilder view (index.json.builder) is rendering empty, and throwing no errors. I've placed the issue on Stack hoping to get some help: